Dinner and a book is supported by the Rex and Alice A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.

Hoosier Chronicle was written by Indianapolis popular author Meredith Nicholson in 1912.

It's a powerful novel of politics and a society set in central Indiana, particularly Indianapolis.

This book was published at the height of Nicholson's reputation and marked his most ambitious effort as a serious writer factually based analysis of politics, the role of legislative bosses, and how progressive reforms were then being promoted in the Hoosier State.

Let's meet my guest, Bill Firstenberger, who really knows Indiana.

Welcome.

Well thank you, Gail, it's good to have you back.

I'm thrilled to be here.

What is this like author number eight in our series?

Yes, I lost count, but it's been fabulous.

journey along.

Hey, I've enjoyed reading these authors, and I'm glad we did this.

And I hope you've enjoyed.

I'm finding out more about Booth Tarkington and Jean Stratton Porter.

Yes, Lew Wallace, Theodore Dreiser, the list goes on and goes on.

And that's how I found out about Meredith Nicholson, because I really hadn't heard about.

Had you heard of.

No.

Okay.

All right.

So you get the music, man.

I was so confused.

I don't think many of our listeners and viewers have probably heard about him either.

Yet he was one of the most pivotal Indiana writers in the first quarter of the 20th century.

He had three national bestsellers, in between the years of 1905 and 1912.

And this one, Hoosier Chronicle was his personal favorite.

And he said the high watermark of all the books he ever did.

We learned a lot about Indiana and their characters in this book, but they're mainly at the high end of society.

Yeah, we really don't touch upon the, the derelicts or the, the hungry.

I mean, but there is a theme that we'll talk about for women, women and minorities, too.

And, and like any of these historic novels, you have to be, you know, a little bit, language.

You have to put on your desensitization earmuffs a little bit when you read some of these things because they're speaking of the times in their language.

but that being said, yeah, there are some wonderful themes and especially with, with women.

And we see one grow right up before our eyes.

Two actually, yes, of course, of, of the novel.

Yes.

And, it's it's Sylvia.

Sylvia.

Sylvia doesn't know too much about her family.

No, she she is, essentially raised by her grandfather from the age of three.

And, because, her mother dies when she's very young.

Her grandfather, goes to get her.

No one knows who the father is.

You find out at the end of the book, you find out the end.

Yes.

And she lives with her grandfather, who is a professor at.

Well, what's it called?

That's another great thing about this book is that they use real historical references to places in Indiana.

Wabash College is the real life place where, Professor Kelton teaches, but they call it Madison College.

in, in, the book, they also have another Frazier ville is, is a village town that plays a big role.

And we're debating whether that's Zionsville or Noblesville.

We don't that really.

Sure, but it's one of those two.

Probably.

Yes.

And and so, you know, there are lots of hints here of what's going to come into the future, but just the very beginning.

And I think one of the themes is, is helping women.

and the thing is, this young woman is so gracious.

She's so smart, she's so kind.

She's a perfect woman, isn't?

Oh, my goodness.

Sylvia.

Sylvia, as a teenage girl, Professor Kelton and the people around the college call her the young lady of the stars because she studies constellations, astronomy and mathematics.

she learns at the, the feet of her grandfather, who was a, retired, Navy naval officer from the Civil War.

So you bring in that whole era of of civil war, middle 19th century through this is set in the present day at 1912. and it's just that incredible era of rapid change in, in American culture.

And Indiana was right at the heart of it with politics.

Yes.

And and it's so striking to me that it was really a forward state, wasn't it?

They were working on women's issues or trying to.

Yes.

And, this young lady, instead of going to the school featured in the book.

Right.

Where does her grandfather send her?

Yeah, well, she's for college.

For for college.

She ends up, going out east and again, it's it's called, it's a fictitious name.

We don't know, but they make a reference to Vassar, policy.

yes.

Well, Wellesley, but they make a reference to Vassar being kind of the, you know, the counterpart to it in my my, graduated from Vassar in the 1940s.

And so it resonated with me.

And you've had a little of that rub.

So they sent her out east is the point they sent her to.

Why do you think she did that?

That's an excellent question.

I I'm not sure that it's a device of sort.

The author, you know, this is a, a successful family.

but it's not, you know, super wealthy and that sort of thing.

Should I, should I be doing something?

We're talking an awful lot.

Well, because it's such a good book, you know, and we don't have to, but it is a fabulous book.

It's a fabulous book.

I have some important stuff, too.

I'm going to start.

Okay.

You start taking off the greens off my off my batteries here.

And I'm going to heat up my grill.

What what kind of meal are we making?

We're making a lunch, aren't we?

Yes.

It's just a simple lunch.

and, you know that any time you have me on this show, you give me the most challenging cuisine, right?

first and burgers.

we better make this pretty simple.

So.

So, folks, I'm going to prepare a dish of, cherries and berries, with sweet cream.

And, he's doing.

That's one of his first courses there.

That's one that's.

And I'm going to first segment here, I'm going to heat up some Black Forest ham.

This is a lunch.

So it's fruit and it's, ham.

We could have fried chicken if we wanted to.

I don't make fried chicken.

I just don't.

And so we're heating up some ham, and we have fruit.

We'll have a little drink there, won't we?

The women normally wouldn't have the drink you're proposing.

It's a main man in the book.

It was proposed by aunt Sally when she was a forward.

Yes.

And aunt Sally is is an elderly matron, in the book and but sort of everybody's friend but at the same time keeps everyone in line, including all the politicians and all the people in power.

and so, Sally, Owens, she is having a very serious conversation with Professor Kelton.

And she said, let's start this off, with a little bit of whiskey and water.

So she was used to working with men.

I mean, it was a lot of these women, even in the high society, they were out working with men so much.

These sisters, these aunts, they were very progressive.

And they knew she was wealthy to wealthy and progressive, and they kind of helped out Sylvia.

Everybody in loved Sylvia the student.

Oh, my.

And, so we're having a little lunch for these people, and it wouldn't, it would be a common thing to have ham or fried chicken.

But as I said, I don't like to make fried chicken.

It's such a messy thing.

And, so you've got a good hams, a good Hoosier.

It is.

Yes.

We have pig farms here, don't we?

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, there's another thing in this book that we learn about right away.

They talk about how a town comes to be known as a one horse town.

Oh, sure.

And I had never I had heard that term and it was always kind of derogatory is I think is a derogatory term.

So you think in the 19th century, especially of the wealthy elite, you would have your carriage, pulled around.

And if you were really wealthy, that was with a team of horses.

But after the, economic depression in the 1890s, it impacted Indianapolis so much that the most popular mode of conveyance was the station wagon, which was, essentially a wagon and a carriage combination pulled by a single horse.

Yeah.

And they were everywhere in Indianapolis.

And so they started calling Indianapolis a one horse town because, well, they didn't have a large enough road to have, a lot of vehicles, and that's how I took it.

But in any case, we will see how we interpret one.

Probably followed the other.

Yes.

Yeah.

You could have broad thoroughfares if you had needed it for the teams of horses.

So, sure.

Now we have Professor Kelton, who is the grandfather of Sylvia, and he's a lovely man.

You have a favorite.

It's outdoor man talk about, So, John, where is the outdoorsman?

Minister.

Yeah.

And he plays a critical role.

Like, like any really great novel.

You have somebody in the cast of characters who is carrying sort of the secret information unknowingly.

and he's that person.

But, he talks about going up to Nipigon, River in the summertime with the, to to do his summer hunting and his explorations.

And I'm going to pour my sweet cream over my berries.

Isn't that nice?

Isn't that fabulous?

Let's see.

This is going to be part of the meal.

It's just lovely.

And so the way that that, where he speaks, he he talks and he preaches and he tells stories in kind of this staccato, almost like a pre, Hemingway, way of talking and, and it's, it's fabulous to just listen to him tell a story and how he sort of spins that and he.

Yes.

And he is.

He's a man on his own course, I mean.

Absolutely.

So we're going to take a little break here and get all of our food ready for the second.

Wonderful.

And we'll be right back.

And we're going to get ready for the second part with our food and our discussion.

Tell me what you're going to do with these nice little sponge cakes.

Yeah.

Sponge cakes.

And we have some whipping cream.

And I'm going to just adorn them with some bright red raspberries.

And that'll kind of help fill out some of our berry, you know, theme here that we have going on.

What are you doing?

Well, I'm watching you finish doing this work.

Okay.

Am I doing.

I'm putting my biscuits in the oven.

We're going to time this for about 13 minutes.

I'm going to check.

And they're big biscuits.

And this is something they would have.

I don't eat biscuits.

I love biscuits.

and, but it is a good it's a it fills you up, doesn't it.

Yeah.

And with that we have some homemade jam.

We have some, marmalade.

That was the.

The package was sent from England.

And a friend, Janice, made the marmalade.

We have some cherry jam, too.

That was made.

so we have, we have nice preserves.

There really aren't preserves because they didn't preserve the fruit.

The whole fruit.

But we'll have our muffins will have butter, real butter.

And, the the jams.

Well, they talk about making the preserves in the book.

In fact, that was one of the activities that they brought the, the, poor working girls.

The.

Oh, yes.

Geez.

From Indianapolis up to like, warp again, which is actually renamed for Wawa.

See.

Oh I see.

And, and they had them making preserves at Aunt Sally's farmhouse that she had there.

Yeah.

And so this it's a skill.

Yes.

And they were they were really afraid that these girls who were serving in the roles of, like, stenographers or factory shop, girls who might sweep the floors or do other types of menial tasks that, that, they were going to lose their homemaking skills and they wanted to ensure that, you know, this would be a preserve skill.

It is a preserve skill, and I think it's a good idea.

My mother said, don't waste your time on that stuff.

Go out and learn about the world.

And so I didn't know how to do any of that.

But that's, you know, look at where you are today.

You're at dinner.

You're the host of dinner.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, I enjoyed that a lot, too, I have to say.

So we have other characters that are so interesting in this book.

Let's talk about Bassett.

He.

Well, I don't like him at all, I think I think as we talk about Morton Bassett, we're going to have to probably, coax ourselves a little bit.

oh, we're going to have a little bit of farming up here.

Hey.

Yeah, because you need that with Morton Bassett.

he is not a nice person.

He's nasty.

Is a power broker.

I guess you would say, political power broker.

a state senator, but wields power from all corners of Indiana.

And so I mentioned earlier that, aunt Sally and Professor Kelton have a very serious discussion over, whiskey and water at Aunt Sally's, request.

I'm always having those.

I'm going to give us a little.

What are those grain cubes in there?

So, yeah, you notice, those are those are whiskey rocks.

And, I was given those as a gift, and you keep them in the freezer and means that if they don't melt.

But it makes your drink cold and so preserves the taste a little bit better.

So cheers.

Cheers.

This is new to you?

How about to Sylvia?

Definitely the hero.

And she is.

She definitely is.

And she's had to put up with this Morton.

and we find out later.

Wife.

In a way, she has to, but he is someone you just kind of keep your eye on.

Yes.

And he's he's a I don't want to say typical, but he is a politician from the get go.

Well, and he's, he's a puppet master.

He's pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Nobody really knows everything that he's doing or what he has his hands in on, but it turns out that he has his hands in and everything.

Everything.

And, and so if a political rival starts to rise, he knows just the way to bring them down.

Yes.

And he's he's really not, like I say, not very nice.

His wife doesn't like to be around him.

And his daughter kind of, challenges him all the time.

And she's kind of a spoiled woman, Marian.

But we kind of like, at the end of the book.

Yeah.

Marion's very strong willed, where Sylvia takes the path of education, to to raise her up and elevate her status.

Marian does it kind of in more of, the old school wiles way.

she's not she's not a great student.

She doesn't like to be in.

She's got Morton's money.

That's true, that's true.

And she wants to take advantage of the things.

But, she does eventually realize that she can use her skills to still serve a greater purpose.

And, and so she matures.

She becomes a society woman leader, young woman leader by the end of the book.

but you don't know that that's going to happen to Mary.

In fact, a couple of times you kind of think.

Something bad might happen and we have this nice young lawyer who is kind of Jackie's back and forth on some of these jobs.

He's a nice person and he's a thread that kind of weaves it all together.

He has he's there from the very beginning to the very end of the whole thing.

and let's talk about this funny Alan.

What's his name?

Yeah, it's Archer, Alan Thatcher.

Alan Thatcher's the son of, another, Democratic powerbroker, sort of a rival to Morton and his father's Ed Thatcher and and Ed Thatcher has all kinds of very shady business dealings of how he made his money.

But he has lots of money.

Oh, he has he has more money than Morton Bassett.

but he doesn't hold the political post.

He's just a he's just a pure businessman, sort of buying people out, making all these things happen.

And so there's this tug of war between Morton Bassett and Ed Thatcher, and then the son, Alan, is just the opposite of his father.

so he wants to even though he lives with his father in this lavish, mansion in Indianapolis.

Every day he goes to work in a furniture factory, alongside, Communist laborers, immigrant communist laborers.

And he's always referring to, the American experiment, when he's talking with.

Oh, it's a great thing, isn't it?

Yeah.

Experiment.

All these people coming, poor people coming from around the world, and they're going to make America very, very important and strong.

And so he's he's kind of like, totally.

Or they blow it up.

You kind of wonder, is he is he hanging out with anarchists?

Yeah.

I think is is, definitely.

And we don't have the possibility.

We don't really know if he blows up anything.

It's not.

It's not in the book.

He.

So.

So he and Marion go to elope?

Oh, yeah.

Right.

And and this creates a huge amount of core.

her father's not going.

The two fathers.

It's, You know what?

You had to be thinking of Romeo and Juliet, right?

In this.

You might think of it at all.

oh.

I thought of the two families.

The warring families a little bit.

I just I just thought of the son.

Kind of like rebelling against his father.

Well, there.

Is that obvious?

Yes.

And, so these characters are in this book.

Journalism.

we have some food.

We, you know, they have this dinner at the hotel, and we said, let's not do this turtle soup.

Oh, yeah.

green turtle soup, green soup, and then frog leg.

Frog leg.

Then there was some other thing.

Oh, they had lobster.

And one other scene too, but that.

But, you know, we just felt that wasn't quite Hoosier enough for us, right?

At least today, I guess.

I don't know, maybe you go out and catch a turtle.

Turtle soup.

my father did, but, well, it wasn't like that.

It wasn't subsistence.

So this is served in a country club as a delicacy?

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got to check these.

I can when I can smell something baking.

Oh, no.

It has a ways to go.

Not quite.

Yes, yes.

All right.

We have to wait.

so as we were talking about some of these themes, we know that the role of women was so important at that time.

I mean, the changing.

And they.

And this guy Meredith, he, he was thoughtful about this wasn't.

Absolutely.

So if you think about this, this book is written in 1912, seven years before women got earned the right to vote.

And, and he has these strong, strong female figures in Sally Owens, Sylvia, and eventually Marion.

right.

There's not there's not a sloughed off in the group.

Well, maybe Marion's mother.

So she's fed up with her husband, and she's constantly worrying that.

Yeah, with Sylvia hanging around her daughters is not going to get her fair share of Aunt Sally's money.

Well, yes, there's that too.

But she eventually comes around because.

Because everybody you know, but she she does worry, there's no doubt about it.

And and she doesn't Shirley doesn't like her husband.

He's a handful.

Yeah, he really is.

And he's always.

We don't we have no idea.

He does appear throughout the story to the very end.

And all of them do.

I enjoyed reading it, and it's huge book.

I mean, I think could we could have edited this book down a little bit.

but it's well done.

This is your personal copy.

Both of these are my copies.

one, I this is kind of the more common one.

This was, first edition special authors copy that has some, a little poem, handwritten from the author in the front.

But what I love about it is that it's it's wonderfully, easily easy to read.

It just flows.

And I so many of the authors that we read from 100 plus years ago, it's hard to read them because it's like, it's not the way we talk nowadays.

Yeah.

This is very, very, very enjoyable to read.

But it's long, but it goes fast.

Now we're just going to take a moment to pull ourselves together, and we're going to invite you to our Hoosier luncheon.

And in the meantime, we want to show you a picture of the house of this writer in Indianapolis.

And we'll be right back.

And we are putting the last biscuit on our bread basket for our lunch.

This is our lunch.

Let's talk about what we made.

We have biscuits, we have homemade marmalade and cherry preserves, some ham, black forest ham.

And talk about yourself.

Just, some, berries and cherries and, sweet cream.

And then, a little sponge cake with the whipped cream and topped with the raspberries and of course, we we oh, we celebrate with our whiskey and water.

So the men and the women did, too.

These ants had some, didn't they?

The ones that were in the know and were smart.

They had a little nip, she said, a thimble full before she went to bed every night.

Oh.

okay.

So what was your favorite part of the book?

You first.

Me first.

Okay.

Well, the favorite part of the book.

I loved the whole book from start to end.

There were so many personal connections for me.

And I don't want, you know, it shouldn't be about that.

But every page I turned, it felt like, oh, yeah, I relate to that.

I can I can feel that.

And so, that was just I never would have picked this book up and read it without being on this show.

So I want to thank you for, for letting me, explore and do this.

We do read some good books because of this show.

Yeah.

And I want to thank you for, for suggesting this.

I had never heard of it.

And I had such an old book.

I picked it up and it kind of fell apart.

And so Bill has his here, mine is at the library, infirmary, where they're going to fix it up.

And you do that, this, you know, this is simple, but this is a lunch that one would have had in Indiana.

Sure.

1910.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And my my favorite character was the, the outdoorsman minister John where because he, he just was always had, a pithy way of telling a story and spinning a yarn.

And he went to so many places that are familiar to me that I just felt like this was a kindred soul to my own spirit, an Indiana fellow.

And I know I have to say, I like the ants.

They were strong, they were smart, and they were opinionated, and people paid homage to them and listened to them.

there's a message there, isn't there?

Wisdom with it and something like that.

But we're.

I'm so glad you could come and bring your historical knowledge for this book in this period.

And we want to thank you for watching.

And, Bill, that we should have another toast and say, good food, good drinks, good books make for a very good life.

Thank you.

And we'll see you next time.

This WNIT Local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Dinner and a book is supported by the Rex and Alice A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.